MONTREAL—Quebec’s proposed ban on public employees wearing religious symbols is legally defensible, necessary for the good functioning of the province and even “wise” in the face of the province’s immigration levels, says the renowned constitutional scholar who helped the Parti Québécois draft the controversial bill.

But Laval University law professor Henri Brun said he had no illusions when he was working on the so-called charter of Quebec values last spring that its release would be explosive in the province and cause tremors across Canada.

“It was foreseeable,” Brun said in an interview with the Star. “In any case, the government and (Democratic Institutions Minister Bernard) Drainville were aware that it would be starting an antagonistic debate between the Anglo-Canadians and the Franco-Québécois. As early as April we were aware of that.”

The expectation is that Premier Pauline Marois’ government will seek to prevent anyone who draws a salary from government funds from wearing religious symbols in the workplace, including police officers, judges, bureaucrats, nurses, teachers, daycare workers and doctors. The broad outlines of the government’s position are to be revealed this week.

The third-party Coalition Avenir Québec supports the initiative in principle, but says it should apply only to those in positions of authority, excluding the likes of daycare workers and nurses. The Quebec Liberal Party, which is the official opposition, is opposing the measures outright as an unnecessary attack on individual freedoms.

In Quebec, the majority of commentators have accused the PQ of using the issue to draw political support among francophone voters at the expense of religious and ethnic minorities. Outside the province, politicians, advocates and columnists have decried the move as discriminatory and xenophobic.

Most critics take comfort in the belief that Quebec will one day be brought into line when a legal challenge arrives at the Supreme Court of Canada, the highest court in the land.

But Brun said that when he was under contract to the Quebec government in March and April, it was these very scenarios that he was asked to puzzle over.

“Is the ban on religious symbols destined to be condemned, to be judged invalid by the courts? My legal advice is that it’s not at all obvious,” he said.

“We can reasonably say that it might pass the test. I think it can and I can say that with my head held high.”

There is no dispute that the proposed ban would cut into individual religious freedoms, but the Quebec government is relying on section 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and section 9.1 of Quebec’s equivalent charter, both of which acknowledge the ability to pass laws that put “reasonable limits” on those freedoms.

The question now is whether the stated goal of enshrining Quebec’s religious neutrality in law is enough to trump religious rights.

“We can’t say that people are prohibited from working or that they are prevented from keeping their religion in public,” said Brun, who has now completed his contract providing legal advice to the government. “I’m not at all convinced that it is clear or obvious that it will be judged unconstitutional or an unreasonable infringement.”

He would, however, limit the prohibition on religious dress to those in authority positions, saying it is tougher to make the case that a nurse in a hospital has any coercive authority or influence.

“My personal opinion ... is that to help the ban pass the legal test, and for reasons of efficacy — so that it works — it should apply only to agents of the state who are in positions of authority.”

Outside of the cool-headed legal reasoning, there is passion on both sides. Those wearing hijabs, turbans, kippas and crucifixes to display their faith claim they are being targeted gratuitously. Longtime advocates for a secular state see a menace in every incidence of a Muslim child whose parents don’t want her exposed to music in school, the Jewish mothers who asked the YMCA to frost the windows of its gym to shield their children and the Catholic pro-life lobby groups.

“There has been a spectacular increase in the participation of religious movements in the world of politics. It’s worldwide. It’s largely but not exclusively Muslims. It’s also born-again Christians, the Adventists, the Creationists, et cetera,” said Michel Lincourt, a spokesman for the Quebec Secular Movement, which has long argued for a ban on religious symbols in the public service.

“For them it’s not only a question of practising their religion. They are well-financed, organized and they do propaganda to adapt society to their religious beliefs.”

There is no absolute figure for number of religious minorities who would be affected by the ban on religious symbols, but most agree that the group is likely small, if not negligible.

For that reason, Lincourt said any new rules should only apply to new hires —that no one should be forced to quit their job or be fired.

But though the problems that have occurred so far are statistically insignificant, the charter of values will also serve as a “preventive measure” in the face of continued immigration to Quebec, said Brun. The largest single group of immigrants to the province come from French-speaking North African countries like Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, where the predominant religion is Islam.

“I think it’s wise to try to foresee things rather than wait until you’re overcome by a crisis,” Brun said.

Premier Marois told Le Devoir in an editorial board meeting Thursday that she is also concerned about the principle of equality of the sexes.

She said that a daycare worker wearing a hijab, “connotes a certain deviation from the equality between men and women, a kind of submission.” The display of faith and devotion could also push impressionable children toward religion themselves.

“This woman is in a position of authority over those children,” Marois said.

Perhaps the most perplexing part of the debate for those trying to understand it outside of Quebec is the fervency and passion in defence of the principle of church-state separation, one that is shared universally in Canada but has infrequently caused problems for the hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

Quebec, said Brun, has already fought one battle to shake off the influence of the Catholic Church, which ran the schools, hospitals and exerted its influence over the government until the reforms that the Quiet Revolution ushered in.

“The neutrality of the state has been well established for the past 50 or 60 years and so it’s more difficult to support a return to the past for other religions,” Brun said. “We’ve already done the work to neutralize religion regarding Catholicism and Protestantism and now we’re not willing to go through the same process for other religious minorities.”

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